Lamar Thomas, ball tucked in hand, Miami Hurricane swagger firmly back in his possession, streaked down the left sideline, certain to score and keep the outcome of the 1993 Sugar Bowl in doubt. But Thomas didn’t see George Teague coming, just like the No. 1-ranked Canes never saw the Alabama Crimson Tide coming that New Year’s Day night in New Orleans.

With one unforgettable hustle play that summarized one incredible night, Teague’s place in Bama lore was both born and bronzed. Teague made a championship play on a night the Crimson Tide won its first championship since 1979, a 13-year gap sizable by Bama’s standards.

The play didn’t seal the eventual 34-13 blowout win over the mouthy and mighty Canes, nor did it turn momentum because the Tide pretty much had that all night long. Heck, the play didn’t even count, as an offsides penalty on Bama negated Teague’s heroics (on the stat sheet at least) and gave the ball, for a short while at least, back to Miami.

Still, “The Strip” always has been so real to so many, just like Teague.

“Although the play was negated by an offside call, it completely summed up the tone of the entire game,” wrote Aaron Tallent in ranking “The Strip” sixth in his Top 10 Moments in College Football National Championship History, which was published in January.

The free safety Teague went on to a solid NFL career, and he certainly showed up for the Tide on more than just that national title night. But say the name “George Teague” around the state of Alabama or specfically around Tuscaloosa and you’ll likely get happy looks and satisfactory smiles about a play that culminated Teague’s personal highlight reel.

Teague took Miami’s heart and its will during that third quarter, taking the ball from Thomas and also from quarterback Gino Torretta, who misthrew a pass over the middle, where Teague was ready. He snagged the interception and streaked 31 yards to the end zone for a 27-6 lead.

He was so legendary on that one night that Teague helped win the game twice in the same quarter, first with the Pick Six and then with the Hallowed Strip, which was like putting a collective muzzle on the Canes that night and effectively ending their run in the 1980s and early 90s. Teague helped make history and make one dynasty history.

“I knew it was going to be my fault if I didn’t hurry up and catch him,” recalled Teague in an account of the game by Ron Higgins of the Memphis Commercial Appeal in 2008 for the Sugar Bowl’s 75th anniversary celebration.

With that in mind, Teague not only caught Thomas but did a little better than that. Then-Alabama defensive coordinator Bill Oliver chose to remember a fitting backdrop from that play, since it symbolized UM’s brashness being put to rest by Teague, at least for about a decade.

“The funniest thing was when Thomas was running for what appeared to be for a touchdown, the guy in the Miami mascot suit, that ibis, is running down the sideline with Thomas,” Oliver told Higgins. “When Teague snakes that ball out from Thomas, that mascot stops, spreads his legs, puts his hands on his hips and just starts staring in amazing disgust like, ‘What in the world happened?'”

Teague happened. A born leader of young men and protector of honor as he would prove through future steps in his life, Teague didn’t give up on the play, and so the team being laughed at by the Canes on the field before the game was beating them in every category you can be beaten.

“It’s amazing how far George ran to make that play,” Oliver told Higgins. “I knew George was fast, but I didn’t know he was that fast.”

Three plays defined style, character

If anything, Teague just had an amazing sense of the moment, as leaders usually do, in any field or on any field. Because the Pick Six that preceded the Hallowed Strip was the first interception Teague had returned for a touchdown at Alabama, and it came in his final college game. Call it one of the best curtain calls to a fan base you will ever see.

“I’d never been in the end zone before,” Teague told Higgins. “I hate that it had to come in my last game.”

On “The Strip,” Teague raced from the opposite side of the field and chased down Thomas at about the Bama 10-yard line, preventing a touchdown, preventing Miami momentum that could have led to anything, you never know, and launching Teague into a forever YouTube hit for all-time hustle.


“One of the greatest plays I’ve ever seen in a game and certainly the finest made by an Alabama player,” said Oliver, who knows plenty of the history Teague added to Alabama, having played in Tuscaloosa himself from 1959-61 before becoming an assistant coach there through the 1970s and rejoining the staff in 1990.

Teague was an All-SEC safety during his senior season, and of course a champion at Bama who went on to be a first-round pick, 29th overall, of the Green Bay Packers in 1993. He was in Green Bay for three years before spending one year each with the Cowboys and Dolphins. But it was in his second tenure in Dallas when Teague provided the second shapshot to who he was.

The Air Force brat who grew up at bases in Kansas and Germany before moving to Alabama didn’t take the Dallas Cowboys’ star at midfield lightly. He was rooted in discipline (military) and tradition (military and Alabama football), and he wasn’t going to let 49ers wide receiver Terrell Owens disrespect The Star. So after Owens scored on that September day in 2000 and ran toward midfield to “dance on the star” for the second time that afternoon, Teague came racing to the star’s defense and charged into Owens.

“A lot of trash talking during that game. A lot of stuff going on during that game,” Teague told CBSDFW.com two months ago. “Basically, I got angry. Enough was enough.”

Teague said he would “absolutely” do the same thing, all these years later. And his defense of the star was ranked by CBSDFW as the 19th-greatest moment in Cowboys history, typical of a man who wasn’t a star but took every measure to defend Dallas’ star. He always did have a sense of the moment.

And a sense of what’s really important. In 2002, after Teague retired following that second tenure with the Cowboys, he started the George Teague & Friends Foundation, a charity organization made up of many former Alabama players.

Since then the leader on the field has become a leader and a strong example off it. Teague stayed in Texas, coaching high school football at Harvest Christian Academy before becoming athletic director at Carrollton Christian Academy. He also took online classes for the United States Sports Academy, located in Daphne, Ala., to finish his bachelor’s degree in sports coaching.

Since 2011, Teague has been the AD and football coach at the June Shelton School in Dallas, and his message from the athletic director’s desk would make any Alabama fan proud, yet again, of the guy who took the ball away and left behind a lasting memory.